


it's gonna be good

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert explores the mystery of Growing Up and Making Friends in a world not dominated by universe-destroying video games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's gonna be good

**Author's Note:**

> just fyi this is like a happy fun times au that seems to be my default for things.

Your name is John Egbert and you live with your dad. You love pranks and your friends and you really hate Betty Crocker, but you are a Normal Kid. You go to school and do Normal Kid things and you sometimes feel like this isn't all that you are meant to do, but then your dad will look at you and tell you that he's proud of you and you feel like if that's true, then that's all that matters.

He tells you this again after you get home from your first day of elementary school. You are still terrified though. Thinking about those hallways filled with people you don't know is enough to make you freeze in your sneakers. You eat alone at lunch, never out of sight of the supervising teacher until one day you spot a girl with short pale hair drawing pictures. You sit next to her and start talking about magic, and soon a boy with the same light hair joins you both. After Christmas your cousin moves to your town and starts going to your school. It's good to have friends.

The first time you meet Vriska Serket she grabs you by the shoulders and takes you into a corner and tells you that you two are going to win this game if it kills you. Not everybody considered team-tag life threatening, but to her it was. You did win, the both of you, and you didn't die, but this feels like the start of something much bigger than yourself.

Your friends start to notice that you're hanging out with her. Rose tells you that you should be careful. Dave tells you that she's batshit insane, everyone knows it, did you know she ate a spider once and it wasn't even a dare? Jade tells you she seems really nice! You agree with Jade.

She likes to run up to you in the hallways and twirl you around in a circle. Soon you're having sleepovers and you discover that you share a love for Nic Cage and that just about makes your heart burst. You tell her as much and she laughs at you and noogies your head, but there is a tenderness there underneath it all.

Soon you're in middle school and things are getting weird and you don't know how to deal with it. All the boys in your class are getting taller and you're not, and you tell your dad this and he just laughs gently at you. When Dave turns thirteen you get him a pair of shades and when he opens the present, the two of you just look at each other and there's this half question hanging in the air before the moment is lost. Things like that happen sometimes and you don't know what they are about.

You and Vriska like to go get ice cream together and sometimes you hold hands in the hallway, swinging them into people not really caring who it was (well, sometimes you care if it's one of your friends, but Vriska never does.) People are always asking if she's your girlfriend. You smile and say no, because it's not like that. She is better.

You start to get nightmares right before your thirteenth birthday. They are full of chessboards and dogs and beds soaked with blood. You tell Rose about this and she tells you that it's probably your fear of adulthood, that you want to be a kid forever, but you can tell she's hiding something. You talk to Jade about it and she tells you that she gets dreams like that sometimes too. Dave doesn't tell you but you know he has, you've spent enough nights at his house and have heard him talking in his sleep. You ask Vriska about bad dreams and she wrinkles her nose at you and changes the subject. You give her a hug.

You get saddled with Karkat Vantas for a project one day. He is shorter even than you, but you think you might be hitting a growth spurt soon and you're excited. He is so grumpy and the two of you end up bickering the entire class period without even starting the poster, because you want it to be horizontal and he wants it to be vertical. He ends up coming over to your house to finish it, and you put on Armageddon in the background and end up just watching that instead. Your poster ends up being finished minutes before the bell rings, but you think that Karkat is actually pretty cool.

Vriska tries to get you to roleplay with her other friends but you can never get into it. Usually you just end up helping Vriska get ready, brushing her wild mane of hair and helping her pick out which outfit is the most bad-ass. You get to hear her rant about how some guy is totally stealing her pirate-theme here. You were going to dress up with her for Halloween and both be Ghost Rider but at the last second she calls you to tell you that she's dressing up as Tinkerbell with (you think) Tavros? And you are a little sad but she tells you it's because he really needs a fairy helper and obviously she's the only one qualified to help, and you're reminded of why Vriska is a good person.

When it's just the two of you and it's late you get to hear things that Vriska doesn't tell anyone else. How she is a bad person, deep down, and that she's afraid that she will always be. She tells you that she's done a lot of bad things and she doesn't know why. You tell her that just because she's done bad things doesn't mean she's not a good person and she hugs you really tight and talks into your hair how you're both gonna defeat the world until she falls asleep (and you don't really have it in you to argue that's not how it works.)

Eighth grade graduation is soon approaching and you start to feel a little overwhelmed about how fast you're all growing up. Your dad starts to get teary when he looks at you sometimes and if makes you feel really weird, and you'd rather he just made a cake instead of doing that. There is a dance that everyone is obsessing over and you kind of wonder if you should ask someone out, but you don't really know if that's something you want. Rose is going with a tall, fashionable girl who you think used to be best friends with Vriska, but she doesn't like to talk about it. Karkat keeps bumping into you at random times and acting like he's going to say something and then blushing and getting mad at you for something that wasn't even your fault, dude. Everything is weird. You ask Jade about why that is and she sighs deeply and says she doesn't know, but it really stinks. You really agree with her.

Dave, Jade, Vriska, Karkat and you all end up going as a big group and when everyone meets up at your house your dad takes about a zillion pictures and you couldn't be more happy. You and Dave end up having a contest of who can drink the most fruit punch without going to the bathroom the longest. (He wins). Vriska dances with everybody and so do you, but you're just sitting, watching Jade ineptly twirl Karkat around to the strains of Katy Perry when all the lights go out and you panic. It reminds you of something really deep back and you end up just closing your eyes and rocking back and forth. You feel a hand on your back and when the lights finally come on after what seems like years you find that it's Rose sitting next to you, looking as scared as you're sure that you do. She gives you a small smile and then stands up to find where Kanaya went. You feel better.

Vriska comes over the night before your first day of high school. You watch Raising Arizona and plan your own movie, where Vriska and you are the stars and you have an awesome mustache and she saves all of the people from burning buildings. The two of you fall asleep, still discussing how she'll wear an eyepatch, and wake up curled around each other with a puddle drool between you. There is the smell of pancakes coming from the kitchen and for once you don't even care if it's Betty Crocker because it smells delicious.

You go together to school, Vriska still wearing yesterday's clothing, and right before you go through the big double doors you look at each other and she grabs your hand and pulls you forward. You feel like it's going to be good.

It is.


End file.
